This invention relates generally to the field of clothing, and more particularly to an improved woven textile fabric material incorporating light-reflective surfaces whereby upon incorporation into a garment, the garment provides a measure of safety to the wearer when walking, jogging or cycling after daylight hours.
Reflective fabrics are known in the art, the most common type being that in which tiny glass beads are incorporated into a flexible resin in planar sheet form and applied to an exposed surface of the garment. A widely distributed product embodying this construction is currently marketed by Minnesota Manufacturing and Mining Company (3M) under the trademark SCOTCHLITE. Such fabric is normally available with a heat and pressure type adhesive by means of which it may be attached to a textile surface of a fabric. In other forms, the beads are applied in a synthetic resin binder directly to this textile fabric.
It is also known in the art to fabricate entire garments of such materials for police and other emergency use. Such garments are, of course, not suitable for general wear, and are not sufficiently attractive for every day use.
One of the principal problems arising from the use of reflective materials of this type lies in the fact that they are non-woven, and thus tend to make the garment rather gaudy in appearance. In the past, attempts to manufacture a thread or filament which will retain reflective properties have failed for the reason that coating the thread or filament of circular cross-section tends to reduce the effective amount of reflective material which is exposed in the finished textile material. The reflective surface also tends to abraid with use and laundering of the garment to further reduce the available reflective qualities. Another disadvantage of this construction lies in the marketing aspects of the material. Where the reflective material is bonded to the textile material, the textile material must be completely finished prior to this application, and cannot be manufactured as greig goods. When a finished textile fabric is coated using a glass bead impregnated coating, difficulty has been encountered in developing a coating which will continuously adhere to the textile fabric after application, and the above-mentioned gaudy appearance cannot be avoided.